Coalition planes pound Sanaa

SANAA: Saudi-led coalition warplanes pounded rebel positions across Sanaa overnight, only hours after the UN envoy to Yemen arrived in the rebel-held capital, residents said Saturday. Among the air strike targets was a house of ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh in his home town of Sanhan, south of the capital. The raids came after Saleh said, in an interview broadcast late Friday, that he had rejected a Saudi offer of “millions of dollars” to oppose the Iran-backed Shiite rebels. Saleh was forced to resign in early 2012 after waging a bloody crackdown on a year of protests calling for an end to his three decades of iron-fisted rule. His forces have been backing the Huthi rebels who seized Sanaa in September before expanding across other parts of the country.